The Transplant Nursing Symposium kicks off in Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA with an opening reception on Friday, 23 June from 18:00-20:00 in the Exhibit Hall. If you can’t attend the Symposium, you can follow the fun on social media with the hashtag #ITNS17.

Help us make a difference in transplant nursing by directly supporting the valuable research and education of ITNS members who strive to improve patient care in every way. Please consider a gift to the ITNS Foundation and join us as we work to improve transplant patient care. To make a donation, you can donate online or call the ITNS member services department at +1-847-375-6340.

The International Transplant Nurses Society (ITNS) is proud to announce the ITNS Core Curriculum for Transplant Nurses, second edition. Expanded and updated to reflect today's thinking, this brand-new edition offers crucial, real-life direction on the science and skills required for every kind of solid organ transplant — from initial evaluation to long-term follow-up. Order your copy today! ITNS members pay only $79.99 USD!

This pamphlet discusses transplantation and pregnancy. After being ill, transplant recipients are excited about their ability to participate in life again. Women and men who have been thinking about parenthood for the first time or having more children may have questions about being able to conceive or to father a child following transplantation. With appropriate medical care, planning, and close follow-up, successful parenthood is possible for many female and male transplant recipients.

News-MedicalNorthwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that a subset of immune cells called nonclassical monocytes (NCMs), previously unknown to reside in the lungs, play a key role in driving primary graft dysfunction (PGD), the leading cause of death after lung transplantation.
The study, published June 14 in Science Translational Medicine, also demonstrates targeting these cells could lead to novel treatments for PGD, a complication that currently impacts more than half of transplant patients.READ MORE

HealioDirect-acting antiviral treatment in patients with hepatitis C and cirrhosis was most cost-effective and cost-saving pre-liver transplant among those with a MELD score of 21 or less, but post-liver transplant among those with a MELD score over 21, according to a recent study.READ MORE

TransplantationFor patients waitlisted for a deceased-donor kidney, hospitalization is associated with a lower likelihood of transplantation and worse posttransplant outcomes. However, individual-, neighborhood-, and regional-level risk factors for hospitalization throughout the waitlist period and specific causes of hospitalization in this population are unknown.READ MORE

Nurse.comMiracle fruits. Herbal teas. In recent decades, these have been the images of holistic medicine. That’s no longer the case.
With more patients facing limited solutions to their health problems, many nurses, whether certified in holistic care or not, are exploring alternative methods to complement modern solutions to relieve pain or rid a patient’s body of disease.READ MORE

By Chelsea Adams New Jersey is the first state in the U.S. considering "no strings attached" tax credits for organ and blood donors. A tax credit reduces the amount of taxes an individual pays. Therefore, it's more financially valuable than a tax deduction that lowers the amount of taxable income on which income taxes are based. READ MORE

Transplant InternationalAlthough kidney transplantation from the donation of a living donor is a safe treatment for end-stage renal disease, inferences about safety of living kidney donors might be biased by an informative censoring caused by the noninclusion of a substantial percentage of donors lost to follow-up. With the aim of assessing the presence of a potential informative censoring in living kidney donation outcomes of Catalan donors for a period of 12 years, 573 donors followed and lost to follow-up were compared.READ MORE

Nurse.comA reader asked about a nurse colleague who had business cards made that falsely indicated the nurse colleague had a BSN degree when she did not, nor was she enrolled in a baccalaureate nursing education program. Moreover, according to the reader, the nurse’s immediate supervisor knows the nurse does not have a BSN, but has not required her to correct the fabrication. The reader was concerned about where to go with this information.READ MORE

Pediatric TransplantationThe enzymatic defect in MSUD results in accumulation of neurotoxic metabolites of BCAAs. LTX has shown to be a feasible strategy in patients non-responsive to diet. Because of sufficient enzyme activity in extrahepatic tissues in healthy people, the MSUD liver graft is a suitable domino organ. We present the first case of a technical challenging ex situ split of a MSUD domino organ transplanted into two pediatric recipients. READ MORE

Clinical TransplantationA growing number of older adults are undergoing liver transplantation (LT) in the United States. In some settings, it is thought that adherence declines with age. This retrospective study examined adherence and clinical outcomes in older vs younger adult LT recipients. Medical records of adult LT recipients from 2009 to 2012 from a single urban center were reviewed.READ MORE